


stirring the cold ashes of our lesser theologies

by sybilius



Series: Talking won't save you [9]
Category: Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
Genre: Atheism, But the latter two as lambasted extremely naively by an asshole murderer, Christianity, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Ready to Fistfight God, Supportive Partnership, Theology, Tweechik, Very brief discussion of suicidal ideation, ain't a syb fic without..., ay they got there didn't they?, unexpected tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 17:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20799983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius
Summary: There is at least one thing that keeps Angel Eyes up at night, and it's certainly not any kind of repentance.*Set eleven years after "Sighted Crows in a Desert of Rime"





	stirring the cold ashes of our lesser theologies

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, I got asked to do this as a tumblr prompt and I really vented some atheist feelings in it. It took a while to come back to posting it cause getting it out was sort of raw, but I am actually quite happy in some ways with what this accomplishes. 
> 
> ...plus like, how many times do we get to see Blondie having a moment of this kind of shrouded tenderness to Angel? Well, not enough imo :)
> 
> Thank you to [marmalated](https://marmalated.tumblr.com/) for the prompt.

It’s the smell of pipe tobacco that pulls Blondie to waking. He blinks heavy eyelids open, checking his sense of time despite the bright summer sun from the window. It’s early, far too early to consider waking. _But he’s awake so –_

He nudges his hand against Angel’s leg, meeting his eyes.

“Go back to sleep,” Angel says, a distance in his voice Blondie can’t quite place.

“Something keeping you up?”

It’s silent long enough that Blondie thinks he’s going to to leave it there. 

“I was thinking about killing gods.”

_Oh. So he’s on that kind of bullshit again._ A smile plays at the corner of Blondie’s mouth. _Might take a while for him to talk himself down from it, but at least we’re just doing Sue’s odd jobs tomorrow._

“Thought you didn’t believe in God,” Blondie stifles a yawn. _Not like I can claim to do better on that front._

“I don’t. No, no Blondie– remember Prometheus, Zeus and his nonsensical lechery, that ridiculous gambit with the golden apple, causing so much slaughter? Gods like that. Whatever made the Greeks think they were worth worshipping?” Angel gestures with the pipe, still as captivating and passionate as the first time Blondie had asked him about his name. _God above, it’s always been a stupid thing to find endearing. Keeps me thinking, though._

“Think they liked that the gods then were on their level, right?”

“That’s exactly it. They should have considered how to supplant them,” he frowns, glaring into the space in front of him, “Though in fairness, a galling number of their mythologies were about the futility of resisting the gods. I_nitium sapientiae timor Domini_, what passes for wisdom goes. That hasn’t changed in those millenia. Stupid.”

Blondie sits up, stretches his neck, glancing to the summer light from the window. _He’s not settling down anytime quick, huh?_ He slips his bare feet on to the cool wood, wincing as he wanders over to grab his boots.

“What are you doing?

“Come on then. Let’s have something to drink, then try for sleep again, right?”

Angel raises an eyebrow, “I’m not sick, Blondie. Just thinking.”

“All that time you went on when we were on the road here, you think I listened to all that bullshit for my health? Nah, you got something to say, I want to hear it.”

Angel pauses, then nods once, following Blondie into the kitchen. Blondie spoons out some water from the barrel in the corner, throws some logs on the stove. _Least now it’ll be easier to make coffee when we do get up._ He takes down a jar of Sue’s scurvy moss, shaking it into the heating water.

“It’s small wonder the mythological view was discarded,” Angel frowns as Blondie glances back to him from the stove, “But, you know. That’s an apt thing to say about their gods, being the same as the mortals. I’ve considered that more than a few times.”

“Thanks,” Blondie says dryly, stirring the moss. _Think I might have gotten that from him ages ago– can’t remember now. _He knows that Angel means it as a compliment of sorts. 

“Not flattery if it’s fact. Certainly you were easy company to recount those stories to, on that journey,” Angel throws that out carelessly– _but that’s a real compliment. _Blondie knows better than to comment, but he does let a smile play on his lips.

Angel rests the pipe on the table,“Gods as mortals. It makes the world more self consistent, if inclining one to overthrow rather than offer tribute.”

Blondie lets that one settle, thinking over questions he might ask as he pours the drink into the tin cups. He sets one in front of Angel carefully, the smell of earth and tobacco mixing together. _Damn familiar, by now. All of it._

Blondie blows on his mug carefully, meeting Angel’s gaze, “Suppose you met… the God.”

“The Biblical God,” Angel tilts his head, his voice flat with skepticism.

“Yeah. What’d you say?”

“This supposing I’m dead, then? And His all-knowing self has deigned to judge me for my actions, by his standards?”

“Sure, suppose,” Blondie narrows his eyes, watching the way Angel’s judgment shifts to this new topic. _One of his favorites, though. Just when I think he’s said everything he can about it, he comes out with some other bullshit._

“Well. I’d certainly have a damn thing or two to say about some of the choices made in this world. Myself, for instance. What better evidence of the so-called God’s utter impotence. No, if I’m to offer even a passing thought to that moral code as belonging to an omniscient being – I’d say He has a lot of gall claiming to ascribe to it. I call myself a hypocrite, but that’s a hell of a lot to take on responsibility for.”

“You’re saying you’d say to God. The reason He shouldn’t exist. Is because you do?” Blondie’s lips turn up. _So yeah. That’s new, and almost stupid. Maybe cause it’s late. _He can’t help being fond though.

“I’m saying that if I’m to accept this ‘god’ as all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-powerful, and I am to believe he ascribes to the same contradictory moral code as the rest of the world – well, at least one, if not many of these things cannot possibly be correct.”

Blondie leans back in his chair, taking a sip of his drink._ Eleven years and still the same sonofabitch I didn’t shoot in the graveyard. Wonder what God would have to say about that._ The word origin coils around his thoughts a moment.

“The snake then, sin, right?” Blondie knew there was an explanation in there somewhere. _Then Adam and Eve sent it all to hell._

“Yes. Didn’t you say I was once like the snake?” Angel’s desert-eyes sparkle. Blondie is surprised he remembered that, “The snake ought to ask god, what purpose to they serve in the damnation of creation. If He was so damn powerful, why does he need the snake?”

“So you’d ask him that.”

“I would,” Angel takes a long sip of the drink, as if daring him to question it. _It’s a goddamn crazy thing to say._

“Okay. Sure. I think there’s some things to answer for, if you put it that way, holding God responsible for all sin. Depends if you believe in the Devil.”

“Those are contradictions, I cannot simultaneously believe this god is more powerful than and created the devil without questioning that decision in the first place.”

“Being a hypocrite. Or thinking like one. But you’re already good at that, right?”

Angel Eyes grins, easily justifying the comparison to the snake, before his face falls back to somber, “Smart, Blondie. No – I suppose it’s not just that I don’t believe the world is consistent with a god. I wouldn’t accept one nonetheless. Even if His judgment was a gun between my eyes.”

“Mhm. I know what kind of piece of work you are.”

“You do,” Angel says distantly, a rare admission for him. It must be early in the morning. “So. What would you say?”

_Right, should have known he’d turn that one on me_. Blondie frowns, rubbing his hands together before settling them around the warm mug.

“Okay, your answer might be kinda bullshit, especially coming from you. But maybe you’re right. Maybe if God’s gotta claim all that power, He should answer for what men like you and I do,” he manages the last words, heavy and careful, but Angel Eyes is already shaking his head.

“Don’t be an idiot Blondie. You’ve never borne so-called sin to the depth that I have, and never wanted to; except as penance. That’s stupid, but if it doesn’t make us the same, it certainly wouldn’t in the eyes of this false god.”

“Can’t believe I’m being called stupid by a man who’d tell God he’s the reason God should go to hell.”

Angel takes a draught, regarding him over the rim of the mug, “I’m sure it’s not how you expected to spend your old age.”

“I didn’t expect to have one at all.”

Angel pauses a long moment, his fingers stilling on the table, “Yeah.”

Blondie shakes his head slightly, touching the tip of Angel’s missing finger._ Every so often that hits me._ The chill morning air is warming with the stove, his skin with the last dregs of the steaming drink. Blondie finishes it, something strange coming to him.

“I mean, maybe that’s a reason why there’s some kinda sense to all of this. A man like you – finding a man like me, by all counts we should have picked off the other a thousand times over. Somehow, we end up here, a place that shouldn’t exist by any measure of reason,” Blondie smiles distantly, glancing towards the view of the mountains in the window, “Maybe I can’t hold God to the sin of you existing if I can’t see a way for me to get peace without you.”

That’s probably one too far, even for conversations before whatever you could call dawn here. Blondie fights a smile as he watches Angel’s brow knit, his lips purse tightly. _He knows I’m not wrong, and he can’t get free of it, neither._

“You– “

“You finished that? Come on, we should get to bed,” Blondie cuts him off, before he has to acknowledge what’s just happened. _I know he’ll take that better. _Angel glares a little, but nods once, leaving his cup on the table as he crosses into the bedroom.

When Blondie unlaces his boots and tucks his cold feet under the furs, Angel has his hand against the scar that runs up to his collarbones. So still thinking.

He lies down, back to Blondie, “That’s compelling. What you said. It doesn’t change shit, but. Makes for a better story.”

Blondie yawns, thinking of the blank notebooks Angel has started to fill on their back shelf. _All those years and he can at least say that much._ Blondie settles his hand on Angel’s scar, figuring they’re both ready for sleep at last.

“Well, let me know when you write it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Big love to everyone still reading what I write for these two <3 I will love them forever <3
> 
> Comments as always, loved, welcomed <3


End file.
